A Pungent Purlieu For Boa Bassinets
by Quillon42
Summary: In tribute to both Bird Box and A Quiet Place, a crossover between the two, considering the cruel consequences of succumbing to yet another most fundamental sensory impulse. If you have dealt it, they will have smelt it…and then they'll deal with YOU…
1. Chapter 1

(NB1: I regret to say first off that I could not include everyone from both films in the story to an elaborate extent, as it would have then become a six-figure epic (in terms of number of words, not in terms of dollars here unfortunately)…Parodies can be scaled down from the source material and all so whatevers. I did keep some people alive who died in the films and all here, but as in _AQP_ I'm not speaking on this any further for now, and as in _BB_ you're not peeking:) Just keep reading if you'd like).

(NB2: The aliens in this story are based on the Janeane-Garofalo-voiced Stith in _Titan A.E._ , which you can look up on your own and stuff. She always scared the shit out of me as a kid and all (Stith, not Garofalo) with her sneers and giant stature and all so that is what inspired me for this story's enemy herein).

(STORY COLD OPEN)

Groceries were arranged in the usual unspectacular array upon the kitchen counter that

evening, the cantaloupes and the cucumbers and the kombucha and such. Among those in the rustic home, that most attentive of Abbotts made sure that which was gathered was the least susceptible to any kind of gut bacteria.

Because anyone with a scintilla of a cerebrum knew what such intestinal congestion led to.

It was just as the apocalypse-embattled beardo finished his count of the belly-healthy comestibles, in fact, that in burst that lovely law enforceress from town, the usual delectable-yet-disconcerted look splashed all across her face.

"Felix's gone down in the basement to the microwave, with that stuff you told him not to get at the general store."

Flushed with frustration now was the well-weathered and brown-bristled face of the hardy homeowner.

"Damn it, Lucy; you know…"

"Look, buddy, I told him not to get that fluorescent Pop fuckshit from the shelf!" The former mistress of Maze-Running gave herself a beat to catch her breath.

"Hhh I took him aside, and I said 'Listen,' and all…then I did the requisite dramatic pause, and then, 'Too gassy.'"

Only a silent glare from Lee.

"Well, what was I supposed to do, gesticulate it to him in effing ASL?"

The eldest Abbott took the pretty policegirl by the hand, he motioning the need to hurry. As Lucy duly followed suit, a shrug from the nondescript nonagenarian Cheryl nearby. "Wait…how could Felix…I just checked, we still have our latest supply fully intact with all the flavors like Confetti Cupcake, and Printed-Fun Gingerbread…"

Lucy shook her head and handwaved quickly to the other survivor. Just before she turned to join the man of the farmhouse in the descent downstairs:

"No, no…not Pop _Tarts._ "

Scrambling quite unquietly down those sturdy steps now were the pair now of Lucy and Lee, the former fearing for her wayward crush which in this reality was heretofore unconsummated (Thank GOD)…the latter just worrying at the prospect of having to clean his Kenmore of sugar and gore when the worst would be very imminently bound to happen.

As the enticing officer had reached the bottommost floor

[BRRRRRAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN]

she collapsed, the cop cupping her hands to her mouth as the super sharecropper behind her pushed ahead to try and reach the reckless rhymesayer before it was too late.

But too late it would turn out to be indeed for the impulsive idiot who were merely trying to impress the foxy five-oh in their fortress against the unspeakable invaders. In attempting to manifest and then outlast the urban legend behind the mergence of cola with that treacherous candy treat whose longform name was essentially "Popular Rock N' Roll," the fetid fate of Felix had been irretrievably sealed, and no one and no thing could reach him in time.

Verily, not the human survivors who huffed down to the cellar in a knowingly futile attempt to

save this gangliest of gangstas.

But also not the incoming insidious interlopers who had now

[CRRRRRAAAAASSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH]

were the menacing aliens new to the terrene scene, one of whom had just now burst through one of the basement windows to get at the malodorous mofo that was its prey.

In what would here be the exception to the continuous rule here…in which outer space conquerors looking like the rather butch she-kangaroos from a Titan (not from an _Attack On,_ mind you, but rather from the more ancient opus of _A.E._ ) were coming to claim the lives of anyone emitting an odor from the anal aperture…the ragamuffin of a rapper here had ended his own life, unintentionally in fact in his vain bid to woo an attractive miss, as his head utterly detonated from the explosive confection concoction, and then his torso followed.

In the wake of this travesty of a tragedy, both the farmer and foreigner slowed a sprint to a skip, then chuffed out mutual frustration and hurried back into his or her own respective lair.

(Coming at the reader in a haze of brown smoke, the terrifying title:)

A PUNGENT PURLIEU FOR BOA BASSINETS

By Quillon42

PART ONE

Terrifying was the trudge that the recluse-turned-rescuer would have to foray with the reptiles and rugrats that were also in tow. Malorie leaned ruefully against the rugged shopping cart that she and Tom custom-built for this hellish haul across the American desertscape.

"I am going to explain this to you once," she stated most archly in this address she would now impart to her two overly impressionable young charges, as they stood outside the still-perfectly-functional safehouse owned by the Abbott farming family. "We are going on what will feel like a long and useless trek. It's going to be hard to stay alert like a sand-stranded Albert Wesker, it's going to be even harder to stay continent, but you have, to do, _both_ , you have to do exactly what I say, or we will not make it. Under no circumstance, are either of you allowed to untape yourself, if I find that you have, I will shove it right back up your ass where it was before. Do you understand? It is hot out there, but Zecks you have Anny, Swhye you have Monty, this well-stocked farmhouse is only a _place_ , it has nothing more for us even though everyone else is staying behind here where it's safe and tranquil and loaded with supplies. Now come jump on into the cart with your pets."

Obediently the two children complied, the girl with her live anaconda cording cozily around her waist and the boy with his python falling similarly in step.

(NB: Although an anaconda is officially considered a boa constrictor, a python technically is not; this author is asking you to use suspension of disbelief regarding this splitting of species hairs and adhere to the outstandingly outlandish idea that a python could belong the titular family of hissers).

Mal turned to the boa-bound boy and girl one more time before she beckoned for Tom to join them. She punctuated the following at them with emphatic index finger points:

"And _no fucking farting in the desert_. If you do, you will die."

All the other occupants of this haven of harvest watched the four flounder off into the hazy horizon. Fortunately for the remaining mass of survivors, their ad hoc home was situated on fertile ground fringing the dunes that Malorie, her man, and the kids had now dared. Everyone else was set on completing similarly integral tasks for the overall improvement of the group.

For example, Greg and Douglas were productively engrossed in their intense tabletop game which was actually situated on the carpet at the moment. On the television the advertisement therefor was blaring boorishly.

 _"Since the end times have begun, we have sadly experienced the exit of joyous sausagey social occasions featuring two dozen young men competing for the attentions for every one woman._

 _"Well, now you can enjoy the awkwardness and tension of the same at home with Thirsty Thirsty Horny Horny Horny Hipsters!_

 _"Twenty plastic figures arranged around the plastic arena serving as the barroom dance floor. One tiny plastic ball in play! Who will be the one to snatch it up? Copies are going fast for that nostalgia of frustration and dissatisfaction captured by Thirsty Thirsty Horny Horny Horny Hipsters!"_

"I'm gonna be the one to clap it down on my next wife," goaded Douglas, he hammering at the levers for two or three of the champing figures.

"No way, man…the one ball out there signifies one of the testes that belongs to my next husband," said Greg.

Close by, the bald bastard's third-time-charm spouse Lydia looked on, she cheering on the competitor who was not her cohabitant in wedlock. "Go, Greg; settle the litigation between yourselves by proxy and come out on top!"

"Oh, this'll be a better coming out than the one in my teens, I'll tell ya."

Then CLAPPPPPP as the plastic commandeered by the assiduous Asian had battened down on the ball then raked it on in. "That's two out of three, Douglas! It's settled out of court, all in my favor."

Everyone but the douchiest Doug had applauded; Greg got up and threw his arms up in abject victory…but then of a sudden

[BRRREPPPPPP]

And then rushing immediately into the scene was Lee, he tackling Greg to the ground and instantly spraying the air around the latter's rear with Lysol of the Lavender Fields variety. The cheeks of Douglas and Lydia's neighbor were still clenched, the guilt and regret registering upon his face for letting himself go a bit too much in that moment.

Lee hugged Greg's lower half to himself and remained frozen in this position for many moments, waiting, expecting them to come around once more. When yet another minute passed in this position and the thumping sounds of jangling alien jumps grew fainter, he relaxed a bit and then whipped out a jar with peach-colored jelly inside.

"No…no way, Abbott."

"You have to, Greg."

"I'm not putting marmalade on my ass for this! (At least, not in this context…)"

"It smells better than what you…or anyone else…could possibly put out and…"

"Lee, you give 'manspreading' an appalling all-new meaning. Forget it. In fact, I'm hauling off to the head right here, on this very floor in this very house now."

"Greg…you know you can't do that!"

Everyone looked at the scene, knowing what had happened those five or so years back at the house, when they had let that egregious shithead Gary into the place. Just beats after the babies of Malorie and Olympia were born, and Cheryl had cut the cords…

"Here, drink of this. Drink of this."

And he'd told the two newborn mothers that the liquid would have an allaying effect, to relax them after the stress of childbirth. Malorie politely declined, but Olympia accepted…and it was a half hour in passing later when Charlie noticed the container for the product in the trash.

"OLYMPIA!...what Gary gave you…it was…it wasn't a calmative…

"It's a _LAXATIVE!_ "

And it was just then that the portly princess's eyes had taken on a chilling chocolate hue that they didn't have before, and she started to get up in a trance.

"Beef! BEEEEEEFFF! _BEEEEEEEEEFFFFFF!_ " cried Gary in his fanatical fervor.

Malorie could see that the otha motha was beginning to make for the bathroom with her own precious bundle, and she threw out her arms in pleading.

"Let me hold her just for one single minute! Please just for one minute! Olympia please let me hold her for a minute! No longer than that and I promise this to you! Just like one single minute! I would be just so glad if you let me hold her for only one minute! Come on and let me hold her for one minute! Really I honestly swear I'll give her right back to you! Take my word for it that I'll give her back to you in a minute!"

The barren brownness abandoned Olympia's eyes for an instant. As she handed her newborn daughter on over to Mal:

"Christ, I heard you like the first 593 times!"

And then she sprinted at full speed to the lurid loo nearby. The same to which Greg was now determined to go, which was all but welded shut after the Olympia incident.

[BRRRAAAAAANNNNNN]

[BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM]

…

…

 _[Tong, Tong, Tong, Tong, Tong, Tong…]_

…

…

…

When the insides of the farmhouse had settled then, after so many seconds of sheer anxiety, the others around had looked over to the crater that had been the crapper. Indeed it was a gigantic gap slathered down with brown and a bit of red, and no intact Olympia to be found; the fading echoes of malevolent marsupial leaps lay suspended in the peeling silence.

Satisfied at the wreck he had wrought, Gary got up and started toward the stairs for more ways in which he could wreak havoc around this home…

"Hey, ASSHOLE!"

…and then he was greeted by the sometimes-drunken but always-diabolical Douglas, who in this instant was sober by drink and loaded instead with a most rousing of rocket launchers.

"Dougl…what're you doing he..."

And then the other man with clean scalp and clearly-opened sockets of eyes

[SSSSSHHHHHHHHH]

let fly the lethal salvo, the OdoRocket they all picked up at their run at the dubious storehouse the previous day (to be covered in next chapter) whirring across the space and striking Gary roundly in the chest, skunk and ermine aroma permeating the air as it went, the aerial pair

[BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM]

impacting against the wall of the house and continuing on, the missile soaring through the sky with a screaming Gary still upon it. On the ground Malorie's sister Jessica as well as Evelyn Abbott and her youngest son Beau all stopped their planting and collectively looked up in bewilderment as the biggest prick of the property was shunted into the dankest of dark woods nearby, where a nest of Earth-foreign wallabies on the warpath were waiting.

They all attracted by the strong and fetid smell of the odious outsider, now the same aliens hopped in the horrific Hollander's direction. When they had reached him, Gary tried at first to skip around himself evasively, as he did to avoid shotgun fire in the original Netflix Bullock bash, to escape their attack here also. When they surrounded him hopelessly, he then endeavored to swing out at them with those same scissors which had in the same abovementioned original bash simultaneously brought two lives into the world and also taken two out of it. But the railing roos just knocked the makeshift weapon aside.

Leaning and seething over the petrified traitor, they taunted derisively at the dipshit, before falling entirely upon him:

"We don't think so, little man. "My sexy sisters and I, we'll all school you on the right proper way to hop around…

"…As well as the proper way to _scissor_."

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. Chapter 2

A PUNGENT PURLIEU FOR BOA BASSINETS

By Quillon42

PART TWO

Mostly the greenhouse had been cleared out so that the farmer-cum-father could design and devise as many experimentations on the solution to the pouncing problem that prowled along the surface of the Earth at present. Lee had been so certain that the syringes he was engineering could render redolent any kind of rectal odor output, such that a whiff of same would not for once attract the vaulting varmints that plagued the planet.

He had been attempting to explain this to his older son Marcus as they were coming back from the cesspool a few miles off. Only there could anyone express something strong-smelling from his or her nether node and not suffer the murderous consequences encountered anywhere else. The boy found the experience to be rather cathartic, after so many months of holding in such a digestive symphony. For certain, just as Long Island has been…er, has _had_ a network of cesspits for so many years, so too did this section of the States in which the Abbotts had resided.

Lee found it a release on his own to relate to his elder son the frustrations he endured regarding his daughter Regan. "I insisted that the Ass Steroids would work against the invaders," he began, "and, as you know your sister can only speak by signing, like, I kept jabbing my thumb against my rear then spread my arms across the sky to emphasize that the world would open up to us once again with these needles…but she gestured back, you know, 'It. Won't. Work.' with stressed fists into her palm. I don't know, Marc, I'm doing all I can…"

And then the oldest Abbott stopped dead in his tracks at the figure he espied a second in passing. It was a young and somewhat attractive woman of ridiculous recognition this day and age, her stage name sounding like an abbreviated version of the alternative to "Cardiologist A." At her feet were the ravaged corpses of past lovers of hers such as Tommy Geez, King Yella, Offset, Onset, Inset, and so many other gangstas whose absence would be felt and missed and mourned in the wake of so many crises of necessity in this time.

Very carefully Lee trained a look upon this second in the line of Cardi, and he motioned with and index and thumb upon his nose, and then used his other hand quietly to cover his rear.

She looked back and met his gaze for a few tense instants then…but decided in that concourse of sensations that existence no longer worth undergoing. Bunching up her face very tightly, the ever-exposed and overexposed performer buckled inwardly another beat…and then

[BAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRNNNNN]

it was all Lee could do to gather Marcus up and hurry off, the incoming Stiths already cantering in and clutching the Cardi Beta with their claws. When the creature-conspiratorial slaughter had concluded, the enemy then set its sights upon the Abbotts. Fortunately for the latter, though, the two had scampered off such that despite the fact that there were in the hills hopping homos both sapien of the States and sexual of Space, the former was far off by the time the latter had so discovered their presence. As such the Abbotts absconded successfully and soon father and son found themselves safely scent-sensed-less again back at the farm.

It was a few more minutes in passing when the rural rex had heard the brief report of Greg's rear and consequently, heroically intervened in the manner that he so had. Shaking off Lee's importunings, however, the abstemious Asian was resolute in reaching the toilet that had been all but mothballed these past months.

Above the din of Abbott protests, Lydia once more: "Greg, if you think your plan is going to work, then I am with you absolutely all the way." She gathered herself up to escort the incontinent man to the recently-unused-yet-completely-restored restroom.

"Oh, what is this, like, your good deed for the day?" piped up Douglas from across the den.

Lydia let in, then out a long sigh to this. "My darling Doug-Bag…being married to you has been my good deed to the universe for a lifetime."

She then went into the lethal lavatory with the other man, leaving the door open so that her dapper Dougman did not raise any suspicions (Greg, of course, didn't swing that way anyway so it wasn't really an issue). Lyds emerged a moment later and softly secured her husband's legal rival inside.

Greg was certain that if he just strapped himself down to the bowl, the sounds and smells would be contained underneath and that no untoward organisms would thus detect him. He strained against the self-imposed bonds of BDSM, did this BD Wong of another world…his eyes turning browner by the beat as he perpetrated all of his pent-up poos…

[BAAAAAARRRRRRNNNNNN]

…

…

…

[SLLLLLAAAAAMMMMMM…]

…

…

 _…[Tong, Tong, Tong, Tong, Tong, Tong…]_

And then in broke the remainder of the survivors, they all scandalized to see naught but a toilet with its tank lid totally gone…and what apparently was the nastiest rabbit hole ever as inside said crapper top was a hollow conduit leading way down, well into the noisome soil of the Earth's depths.

Out in the rec room, a wryly-wrought advert played on the television:

 _"Do you ever have days where one second you're happily running errands around town, then the next seeing something that makes you want to suddenly swallow a bullet?_

 _"Are you ever relaxing at home all carefree one moment and then the next looking to run full speed at and then out your second story window?_

" _Have you experienced countless occasions standing around in front of oncoming trash trucks looking sad-sackily depressed at your preggers sister lying in the middle of the street?_

 _"Well, kiss those discouraging days goodbye, because now there's BIND BOX!_

 _"Just apply the tears of Isaac, the infamous incubus-eliminating infant with the insanely Providence-proselytized mother, every morning before leaving the house, and you'll be looking around at ordinary outside air once again without the hassle of supernatural solicitations of suicide!_

 _"Keep those pesky…we don't even know what the hell they are because we've never seen them…always at bay, every single day!_

 _"BIND BOX…because while Isaac's tears don't cure cancer…at least they can keep you_

 _from impulsively fucking killing yourself in the blink of a grainy-grayed eye!"_

Once more out in the hinterlands of the hoary American desert, those left in the family so motley of Malorie and the children were slogging through as best they could. Tom was already lost to them, having made such a glorious sacrifice when surrounded by the 'supials on a certain dune. Mal wondered why she had heard so many slurping sounds at night, seemingly coming from the other room on the part of her latest boyfriend, when he should have been sleeping at her side. At one of the most critical moments in these sands, the semi-Sandra would find out.

"I've been holding this back from you and from everyone else so long, Mal," said her man, herein this most truculent of Trevantes,

"…Nuclear…Enema…"

He whipped out a somewhat shiny container from a century past or so.

"Predator…threw this to me…before I went and fell out of his ship."

Malorie shook her head in utter confusion, failing to comprehend (especially that last remark and such), and threw her hands out to her man in an attempt to stop him.

He reared back with his rear raised. "…Go…get them to the sanctuary…"

Then Tom took his matchstick against the tarnished box and, for the first time in recent human history, swiping on tinder proved to be something actually productive and beneficial to society.

[BAAAAAARRRRRRNNNNNNNNN]

[BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM]

Both the cries of the heroine and the horrifying hoppers could be heard in the wake of the raucous explosion, as the hardy hero who ignited his haunches had ended up elevating himself into the stratosphere with smoking flames beneath him, not unlike the most rancid of Rocketeers of ages past.

Excited negative utterances issued from the human sista and the Stiths, the former rolling down the humongous dune in her cart with the brats and the boas, she shouting the American version which was one standard beat in length:

" _NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"_

And then the latter becoming swept up somewhat in the malignant mushroom cloud that Tom commenced, the aliens yelling the Australian rendition which this author has always perceived as taking on average ten to fifteen syllables to say:

 _"NAEHAEHAEHAEHAEHAEHAEHAEHAEHAEHURN!"_

Even in midair, one roo rued: "Thees ain't what was s'pposed to haippen!"

Another chimed in with abject despair: "I wennt ta geau _HEAUIMMME!_ "

[NB: Just ribbing those from like OZ and NZ and all here; in all honesty this boring-ass American author wishes that he could just travel to such lush and exotic places at some point in his dull-ass existence…also not to plug other stories but, by the way, mentioning Wellington as a "wasteland" in the "Job Offers/Jetpacks" X-Men story a while back only happened because this author associates New Zealand with Mordor from Peter Jackson's _The Return of the King_. Anyways…]

Malorie had to admit that she felt the same sentiments as she trundled along hours and hours later, she still there with the children Zecks and Swhye amidst all these unending gritty grains. She was about to utter encouragement to them as well as their scaly fanged familiars when of a sudden:

"Someone…has to see…it soon…

"Someone…must see…"

She whipped out a pistol, she scrying the horizon with her eyes to see where the voice was coming from. Before she could find the source, he was already upon her.

"Please…you must see it now!"

Intense was the struggle between the two as Malorie reached into her cart, past all the breathing bundles within, to get at the secret weapon.

 _"Someone has to see it!"_

Scraggly was the man who had accosted her thence. He somewhat resembled that famed sidekick of the silly Will Ferrell, he of _Talledega Nights_ and _Step Brothers_ filmic fame.

As Malorie raised her blades, she realized that it actually was that same actor, was that Dewey Cox indeed, was that Chest Rockwell in fact.

"You have to see _Holmes and WATSSSSS_ SAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!"

But Mal had already laid into the man with her Freddy Krueger claw (just as random as the Jason Voorhees machete she wielded in the source film here), she slicing away at him with a bit of shock registering on her face as she realized that it actually was him.

As he receded now into the landscape, he muttered sadly: "Someone…has to fucking go see it…at some point…"

And then he so disappeared forever into the desert sands.

Back at the farmhouse fulgent with hope for the humans, Evelyn Abbott was trying on various boas with Jessica Hayes. The former flaunted an imperator, while the latter slid on a sabogae, and each complimented the other on how well her respective snake slunk around her waist. (For certain, any boa upon the former looked better than the vaginal-looking lavender threads that her real life counterpart just wore to the Screen Actor's Guild Awards show this year (2019); and this author didn't even have a joke planned for this paragraph before, either—thanks, Emily!)

Nearby, Lucy was looking to slink away herself with a magnificent man whom she met only moments earlier. A void had yawned within the coquettish constable after her fling with Felix had faltered, what with the latter having exploded and everything last chapter. She thought that the latest supply run to the North American gag shop Spencer's Gifts would lift her spirits—after all, that's where Malorie discovered the unexplainable nest of boas…

"Who the hell keeps snakes at a Spencer Gifts?" cried Charlie, who had just recently been promoted to store manager at another location for the same chain.

"Who the hell keeps parakeets in a freaking supermarket?" replied Cheryl.

…But nothing…even the realization that the slight compression of the serpent against the midsection suppressed the urge to manufacture fartage…nothing made the alluring lawwoman feel any better, especially since she never even managed to get to first base with Felix (in this much more gratifying version of her story).

Then _he_ came, and he instantaneously went and swept Lucy off her feet. He told her he knew where they could find something to whisk them far off from this awful smell-sensitive situation, and she nodded ready assent to go with him.

So it was that Lucy and this author skipped hand in heartwarming hand to the field adjacent to that of Evelyn and Jessica, the latter pair not even detecting the former gallivanting around.

A small sliver of a lad, though, a boy named Beau in fact, did notice the doublet of devoted lovers as the endlessly undouchy author strained stressfully to pull up a sprout to unearth a Super Mario Brothers Part The Second Rocket that the child had planted some months previous.

Eyes locked a second and the alleged adult between the two males quivered a bit.

It's alright, signed Beau to this author with his tiny hands. I have at least three rows of Rockets to harvest in the coming season.

With that, Lucy and the love of her life saluted the stripling and climbed into the semi-conical capsule, they quietly blasting off with a Toyota-Prius level of efficiency and exhaust such that not even the most toot-attuned Stith invader could divine a vapor or vibration therefrom.

TO BE CONCLUDED


	3. Chapter 3

A PUNGENT PURLIEU FOR BOA BASSINETS

By Quillon42

PART THREE

Nearly to total delirium now was the manic moperess known to modern constipated civilization as Malorie Hayes. In the midst of the madnesses couched within her brain as well as inside her colon, the beleaguered survivor strained to set herself straight by recalling earlier instants, the first hectic hours when she and her ragtag group had first shacked up at the Abbott residence. The latter family was kind enough to take the strangers in, and for certain the clan deserved an especial award in light of how given to bickering and discord the impromptu visitors were.

"It's not something I've read up on…not in the Vedas or in the Bible or anything like that," pontificated Charlie, the minimum wage worker running thumbs thoughtfully underneath his vermilion-hued vest as he considered the leaping, foul-funk-ferreting leviathans that were out in the atmosphere now. "No, rather than the Codexes, it's more like the Comics…this is more like…like something from a comic book, like Wolverine, he can very acutely pick up people's scents when they're nearby."

At this Douglas, also holed up in the house's kitchen at the time, spread his endearingly-assholy arms wide. "Really? Is _Wolverine_ just that good at smelling people's farts? That's his…superperson power or something? So that's really what we're all up against here?!"

"Look, man, I'm doing the best I can. It's not every civilization that features a grand narrative involving abominable body odors, alright?"

Then Mal remembered how resourceful and just how right Tom was about things sometimes. Survivors eventually figured out the formula for that drink Anderson Cooper used to streamline necessary nutrients on the go (NB: This really exists, so you can look it up on your own and all here now), and so the "Coop Soup" was on the menu way more often than not, especially as its manufacture was modified so that the gassiness of its ingredients was ground down to a minimum.

But the argument she'd had with the man over something so trivial as that.

"We have to do what we need to do to survive and such here, Tom; even if it means souping it up three times a day…"

" _Souping_ isn't _living_ , Lame!" screamed the Tomanator from the other side of the stovetop. Then muttering under his breath: "Soupin' ain't easy."

"Oh, what're you now, like, the WWF(E) Godfather of the Postapocalypse?"

Tom could only shake his head at this jibing.

"…

"…And did you just call me 'Lame'?"

"Jesus, Mal, YES! …When it comes to being miserable, you make Douglas look like Jessica! When it comes to being _sane_ , you make GARY look like fucking _Lee_!"

Malorie started to say something to this, but she remembered that the boas had to be taken out of their bassinets and cozied back up to the kids (the latter of whom were displaced from said cribs and shoved into drawers with the Abbott oxygen masks—priorities did have to be set with bedding after all) lest the wee ones let a few go in their sleep.

This point-persistent Tommo didn't let up, though, through it all. "You name the children Zecks and Swhye because of their respective chromosome designations and shit! That ain't cool! Havin' to go all through middle school n' college like that and such…"

Speaking of miserable, in any case, the desert-driven dame wished now that she could convert some of her Malorie malaise into energy, the way that a certain captain would show everyone in the reader's reality most teeth-grindingly in another several weeks…

(A lady in a lime lite-brite suit hurtles in from space and crashes on top of an E.J. Korvette's store in New York City.)

 _"I was about to give up on the endless tidal wave of testosterone whitewash…"_

 _(Her face comes up through brazen shocks of honey-hued follicles…the expression empty and dull_

 _and mundane)._

 _"Until you had come along."_

 _Voiceover: BEHOLD the uninspired uniform, the anonymous abilities, the vacuum of verve in this_

 _vibrancy-vitiating vixen!_

 _THRILL to her uppercut decapitations of old ladies (actual human ones, not_

 _extraterrestrials in hiding) on railroad handcars!_

 _WATCH in awe as this her-o-ine holds off an entire alien invasion, its constituents_

 _highly sensitive to awful odors, as she strikes with her own aroma-attuned I-Smell-Shit face and fury accompanying!_

 _DON'T MISS IT THIS MARCH: CAPTAIN MISERABLE!_

 _(With all apologies to Dave Attell)._

But matters back on Earth now were much more serious than such frivolous fancy. In fact, it looked as if the Stith were starting to crop up again…and Mal was starting to flag majorly. She needed a boost now, even if it were provided by propulsion from the buttocks.

Weightily the woman sighed, and then she addressed the children with utmost direness.

"I'm going to need one of you to rip ass."

"I'll rip ass!" immediately volunteered Swyhe, he eager not to serve as a sacrifice but just to break the freaking monotony of this pointless voyage, of all their seemingly aimless lives.

Seconds later, with some hesitancy: "…

"…

"…I'll do it."

This from the little girl Zecks, with this look on her face like Please don't make me effing do this Lady who's allegedly my mother of some sort but who is royally fucking up at it.

Malorie realized the awfulness of what she was suggesting and decided that, rather than make a sobering and smelliest of Sophie's Choices, she would have to follow through with her nauseating machinations all on her own. This was her idea in the first place now, so it would have to be her to go through with it.

As she prepped her posterior to power them all ahead, the lady as loud and as livid as ever, despite her latent realizations: "Why do I have to be the one to do everything around here! God, fuck you kids!"

[BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRNNNNNN]

[SSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH]

Terrifically the turbine of Malorie's maximal gluteus brought a new source of force to the back of the cart, pushing it faster and farther along than any prodding the woman had wrought upon it in the past few days. Even the aliens, as jumpy and jolting with hunger as they were, could not keep up with the metal-and-plastic conveyance as it careened across the remainder of the dunes until it reached the border of New Mexico, in which all of the action of this story has heretofore taken place.

[ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT]

Abruptly the maiden made her little vehicle with the vermin, her small pram with her progeny stop so that she could take in exactly where she was as of now.

WELCOME TO FORT GARLAND, COLORADO

This…this was the promised sanctuary to which she had been trying to attain access all this time. Here she knew she would not find a way to resolve definitively the issue of the invaders, but rather just acquire a workaround to the problem for the time being (just like Netflix's harrowing narrative).

Malorie was promptly welcomed to a purlieu most pungent indeed in which the aroma of altering substances was very so strong that one could break winds to gale force and nary a cantankerous kangaroo would be the wiser. Given that this actually-existent town was in fact a dispensary of certain otherwise-illegal, ultimately-illuminating product, the smells were all the stronger.

(Not that this author engages in any such activity…he cannot even tell the blunt variety from the bong in which kindergarten-chocolate-milk bubbles are blown; but anyways.)

When asked what the names of Zecks and Swhye were, Mal turned tenderly first to the girl:

"This is Riley," she stated, and ran her callused hands along the little miss's mane of hair.

"And this is Johnsy," she said in turn to the boy, she lightly punching his shoulder with a wearied fist. It was in this way that Malorie would honor not the man with whom she raised these errant offspring, nor the mother of one whom she hoped she would see again someday, but rather that ill-fated individual with much more personality whose passing (especially because it was by her ever reckless hand) would stay with her for such a greater span of time.

Way back at the Abbott estate, which for the record was situated in this reality about one hundred miles north of Santa Fe, Lee and his progeny had been listless about finding a way of their own through the Stith pickle. It was not until the primary planters in the family had powwowed about more trivial things that they hit upon the thing to do it.

"I do _not_ look like Jessica."

"Yes, you do. You both have those same long, narrow faces that betray a sort of sadness to them. Yours is just framed by vanilla locks to complement her chocolate ones and such."

"Oh? And I would hope, my Lee-ding man, that you would prefer a lighter shade to a darker one along the lines of hers…?"

Lee smiled evilly at Evelyn. "I wouldn't mind a swirl cone honestly."

She slapped him like Cersei fucking Lannister.

He went on completely undeterred. "Like, it would be nice to have an Evesica perhaps, an Evesicle maybe?!"

"Yes, okay, you one-track moron, like a Jessalyn…Jessam… _THAT'S IT!_ "

Brightly shone the face of the lady upon her latent enlightenment, regarding how the effervescent enemy out there could possibly be combated. This look was met by an equally ebullient one from her husband. "So you _would_ agree to a menage?"

She then struck as hard as Cersei's brother against a suitor of his sister.

Now, though, it was almost a couple of days since that exchange, after Lee had recuperated satisfactorily from his spouse's assault. The Abbotts and their annoying, squatting survivor visitors from out of town were all working feverishly along the border of the property, they all forming a front more powerful than any wall patrol of Westeros or the Southern United States. Hopefully all would go well and not go to Hell the way that the American readers' and this author's country has gone at present.

(Der Drumpf had fucked up the nation enough for sure, but the automatic apotheosis of Alexanothera Ocomingo-Christez was enough to make anyone not smothered with soy to snuff himself or herself faster than you could say Bird Fucking Box. In short, be it the threatening and treacherous Trumpsters or the oblivious and obnoxious AOCsuckers of the left, the States have been heading in a downward direction that not even the placental assaulters from out of orbit could possibly exacerbate. In a sense, one could theorize that the Stith could save humanity from an even worse fate at the hands of utterly incapable homo sapiens in power.)

(This author at this point wants to vote for friggin' Whoopi Goldberg in 2020, just because of what she said to Ocasio-Cortez about sitting still and actually learning the effing job. But enough about the political pre-apocalypse of the reality of some people here…let's get back to the post-poc of this indisputably gripping narrative.)

In particular the plantings were of freesia, of honeysuckle, of jasmine (or jessamine, as had so inspired Evelyn a few paragraphs back). Just as a malfunctioning machine of hearing had spelled the beginning of the end for those auditory horrors of the Abbotts' original adventure, here it was theorized that the monstrous marsupials might be similarly susceptible, and possibly rendered weakened and vulnerable, by the sweetest of smells. Then these fortitude-flooded farmers could all roll up and unload on those fuckers with the brashest of buckshot indeed.

Even as these hardy humans were laying seed into the earth, though, and thereby well before the flowers could begin their growth to full bloom, the ground had come up to meet all the inhabitants of this badly-beset farm…including many denizens from the deep crust of the earth who had wished to meet the men and women of the residence for some time now.

Lee was the first to cock his shotgun here, he fixing to balance matters out from the original theatrical opus featuring his family in which the boys (including the baby) cowered in the corner while the girls did all the friggin' work. But before he could get off any kind of blast…

"HOLD ON, ABBOTT!"

And then the surface survivors were stymied to see none other than Olympia and Greg, all accompanied by several Stith in tow.

"What…?"

"It's a good thing that Lympy and I are Kanga-kin," explained the energetic Asian neighbor to the down-in-the-dumps Douglas. "If it weren't for our furry-ass connection to these critters, they might have won out in the end after all!"

Greg then expounded upon the fact that he and "Riley"'s mother had been captured rather than consumed or killed, as the ruthless roos sensed some sort of link between themselves and their prey. More specifically the former found an in with the invaders through common kinks he and his community as a whole had with the lady-loving she-beasts, while Olympia reached out through her origins down under (the actress portraying her (Danielle McDonald) is from Australia and all).

Forsooth, were it not for such communing effected through otherkin and otherwise—in addition to the dubious efforts of tireless leader ladies such as Malorie for her part as well—this world would have succumbed to an end more noxious than the nastiest of aberrant gases.


End file.
